First, I realize I can only blame myself for not doing more research before buying. But I bought a $400+ bridge camera so I wouldn't have to spend $1500+ on a dSLR. No RAW format on a 35mm equivilent bridge camera and max exposure of 8 seconds is laughably ridiculous. I thought the purpose of the "bridge camera" was to introduce similar firmware options as the SLR but using a digital zoom rather than manual focus lenses.

But when researching firmware info I found CHDK info everywhere. It seems people are able to do all kinds of fun little upgrades in firmware for P&S Canons. I'm guessing nothing like this exists for Nikon because I came up empty on google searches. My goal was to do some slo-mo effect time lapse but at 30 sec intervals it's basically fast forward. And for night sky photos the 8 second max exposure is just not enough, you need at least 20-30 seconds with this size censor and lens. Anyone out there in Nikon land have any words of comfort for my bitter soul? When you're a newb you don't really know everything to ask when buying a new camera. I'm too poor to buy another for a while so I'm looking for options. Maybe I'll jailbreak my old tiny Canon. It just stinks to have a bridge camera that really doesn't bridge anything for my kind of photos.